Tag Archive for 'Supermassive black hole'

This illustration shows a likely configuration of a gravitational lensing system discovered by the team: the milli-lens is located in or near the intervening spiral galaxy; the lens is magnifying blobs of jet material within the active galaxy PKS1413+135, but the blobs are too small to be seen in the radio image (top left); only when the blobs move far away from the yellow core do they expand and are visible as the pink blobs in the image. Image credit: Anthony Readhead / Caltech / MOJAVE.

Gravitational ‘Milli-Lens’ Reveals Clumps of Hot Gas Streaming from Supermassive Black Hole

Aug 16, 2017 by News Staff

An international team of astronomers has found evidence for a unique gravitational lensing system, in which a massive star cluster is magnifying an extremely...

NASA’s Spitzer Space Telescope, Chandra X-ray Observatory, and the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope produced this composite image of the central region of our Milky Way Galaxy. Note that the center of the Galaxy is located within the bright white region to the right of and just below the middle of the image. Image credit: NASA / JPL-Caltech / ESA / CXC / STScI.

High-Energy ‘Trap’ Spotted in Milky Way’s Center

Jul 19, 2017 by News Staff

The center of our Milky Way Galaxy contains a ‘trap’ that concentrates some of the highest-energy cosmic rays, according to a new analysis of data...

Artist’s impression of two hypervelocity stars speeding from the center of the Milky Way to its outskirts. Image credit: ESA / CC BY-SA 3.0 IGO.

ESA’s Gaia Satellite Spots Six Hypervelocity Stars

Jul 2, 2017 by News Staff

With the help of an artificial neural network, ESA’s Gaia satellite spotted six hypervelocity stars — stars whose velocity in the rest frame of...

This artist’s conception shows two supermassive black holes, similar to those observed by Bansal et al, orbiting one another more than 750 million light years from Earth. Image credit: Josh Valenzuela, University of New Mexico.

First Detection of Orbital Motion in Supermassive Black Hole Binary

Jun 29, 2017 by News Staff

For the first time ever, astronomers have been able to observe and measure the orbital motion between two supermassive black holes — a discovery...

$Gravitational waves observed by Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory (LIGO) twin detectors were produced during the final fraction of a second of the merger of two black holes to produce a single, more massive spinning black hole. Image credit: T. Pyle / LIGO.$

Signatures of Universe’s Extra Dimensions Could Be Hiding in Gravitational Waves

Jun 29, 2017 by News Staff

In a paper published in the Journal of Cosmology and Astroparticle Physics (arXiv.org preprint), German physicists investigate the effects due to Universe’s...

Artist illustration of the thick ring of dust that can obscure the energetic processes that occur near the supermassive black hole of an active galactic nucleus. Image credit: NASA / SOFIA / Lynette Cook.

NASA’s SOFIA Observatory Spots Compact Tori of Dust around Active Supermassive Black Holes

Jun 14, 2017 by News Staff

Using observations from NASA’s Stratospheric Observatory for Infrared Astronomy (SOFIA), a Boeing 747SP jetliner modified to carry a 100-inch telescope,...

Artist’s conception of the newly-discovered object orbiting the main, central supermassive black hole of the galaxy Cygnus A. Image credit: Bill Saxton / NRAO / AUI / NSF.

Astronomers Spot Bright New Object near Cygnus A Galaxy’s Central Black Hole

May 24, 2017 by News Staff

Pointing the Karl G. Jansky Very Large Array (VLA) at the well-known and often-studied galaxy Cygnus A for the first time in more than 20 years, astronomers...

Ahn et al found two ultra-compact dwarf galaxies, VUCD3 and M59cO, with supermassive black holes. The findings suggest that these dwarf galaxies are likely tiny leftovers of larger galaxies that were stripped of their outer layers after colliding into other, larger galaxies Messier 87 and Messier 59, respectively. Image credit: NASA / Space Telescope Science Institute.

Researchers Find Supermassive Black Holes in Two Ultra-Compact Dwarf Galaxies

Apr 18, 2017 by News Staff

An international team of astronomers and astrophysicists, led by University of Utah, has detected supermassive black holes in two ultra-compact dwarf galaxies:...

Artist’s impression of a galaxy forming stars within powerful outflows of material blasted out from supermassive black holes at its core. Image credit: ESO / M. Kornmesser.

ESO’s Very Large Telescope Spots New Type of Star Formation

Mar 27, 2017 by News Staff

New observations from ESO’s Very Large Telescope have revealed stars forming in the powerful outflows in galaxies, which are driven by central supermassive...

The elliptical galaxy 3C186, located about 8 billion years from Earth, is most likely the result of a merger of two galaxies. This is supported by arc-shaped tidal tails, usually produced by a gravitational tug between two colliding galaxies, identified by M. Chiaberge et al. The merger of the galaxies also led to a merger of the two supermassive black holes in their centers, and the resultant black hole was then kicked out of its parent galaxy by the gravitational waves created by the merger. The bright, star-like looking quasar can be seen in the center of the image. Its former host galaxy is the faint, extended object behind it. Image credit: NASA / ESA / M. Chiaberge, STScI.

Supermassive Black Hole Found 35,000 Light-Years from Home

Mar 24, 2017 by News Staff

Astronomers have uncovered a monster black hole that has been propelled out of the center of a distant galaxy, called 3C 186, by what could be the power...

The massive black hole shown at left in this drawing is able to rapidly grow as intense radiation from a galaxy nearby shuts down star formation in its host galaxy. Image credit: John Wise, Georgia Tech.

How Universe’s First Supermassive Black Holes Were Born

Mar 13, 2017 by News Staff

An international team of astrophysicists from the United States, Ireland and Finland has come up with the formula for the formation of the first supermassive...

Artist impression illustrating a supermassive black hole with X-ray emission emanating from its inner region (pink) and ultra-fast winds streaming from the surrounding disk (purple). Image credit: ESA.

XMM-Newton, NuSTAR Telescopes Measure Temperature Swings of Black Hole Winds

Mar 2, 2017 by News Staff

For the first time, researchers have measured rapidly varying temperatures in hot gas flowing from the vicinity of a black hole. Artist impression illustrating...

This artist’s illustration depicts what astronomers call a tidal disruption event. Image credit: NASA / CXC / M. Weiss.

Tidal Disruption Events Occur More Frequently than Thought

Feb 28, 2017 by News Staff

According to a team of astronomers at the University of Sheffield, UK, stars are ripped apart by supermassive black holes 100 times more often than previously...

Composite image showing how powerful radio jets from the supermassive black hole at the center of a galaxy in the Phoenix Cluster inflated huge ‘bubbles’ in the hot, ionized gas surrounding the galaxy (the cavities inside the blue region imaged by NASA's Chandra X-ray observatory). Hugging the outside of these bubbles, ALMA discovered an unexpected trove of cold gas, the fuel for star formation (red). The background image is from the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope. Image credit: ALMA / ESO / NAOJ / NRAO / NASA / ESA / Hubble / CXC / MIT / H. Russell et al / M. McDonald et al / B. Saxton.

Powerful Black Hole at Heart of Phoenix Cluster’s Central Galaxy Surprises Astronomers

Feb 15, 2017 by News Staff

A University of Cambridge-led team of astronomers has discovered a surprising connection between a supermassive black hole and the giant galaxy where it...

In the heart of an active galaxy, matter falling toward a supermassive black hole creates jets of particles traveling near the speed of light. For active galaxies classified as blazars, one of these jets beams almost directly toward Earth. Image credit: NASA / Goddard Space Flight Center Conceptual Image Lab.

NASA’s Fermi Spacecraft Finds Five High Redshift Blazars

Feb 1, 2017 by News Staff

NASA’s Fermi Gamma-Ray Space Telescope has spotted the five most distant gamma-ray blazars — a type of galaxy whose intense emissions are powered...

This composite image shows IC 3639, a galaxy with an active galactic nucleus. Image credit: ESO / NASA / JPL-Caltech / STScI.

NuSTAR Finds Two Enormous Black Holes in Milky Way’s Neighborhood

Jan 17, 2017 by News Staff

NASA’s Nuclear Spectroscopic Telescope Array (NuSTAR) mission has identified two gas-enshrouded supermassive black holes, located at the centers of nearby...

This image shows the megamaser galaxy LEDA 58817, which lies in the constellation Ophiuchus, about 370 million light-years away. Image credit: NASA / ESA / Hubble / Judy Schmidt, www.geckzilla.com.

Hubble Spots Cosmic Megamaser

Dec 26, 2016 by News Staff

NASA has released a stunning image snapped by the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope of the megamaser galaxy LEDA 58817. This image shows the megamaser galaxy...

This artist’s impression depicts a Kerr (rapidly spinning) black hole, surrounded by an accretion disc: this thin disc of rotating material consists of the leftovers of a Sun-like star which was ripped apart by the tidal forces of the black hole; shocks in the colliding debris as well as heat generated in accretion led to a burst of light, resembling a supernova explosion. Image credit: ESO / ESA / Hubble / M. Kornmesser.

Kerr Black Hole Eating Sun-like Star Explains Superluminous Explosion ASASSN-15lh

Dec 12, 2016 by News Staff

ASASSN-15lh, an extremely bright explosion in a massive galaxy 3.82 billion light-years away, was thought to be the most luminous supernova ever seen....

Left: this deep Hubble image of the galaxy cluster ZwCl 1715.5+4229 (also known as ZwCl 8193) shows the full extent of the giant galaxy 2MASX 17171926+4226571 and some of its gravitationally lensed background galaxies. The white ‘X’ marks the VLBA radio position, the white ‘+’ marks the Hubble optical position of the giant galaxy’s core, and the white box bounds the zoomed image at right. Right: this shallower zoomed Hubble image of the galaxy cluster reveals the core of the giant galaxy, the smaller galaxy, several cluster galaxies, and extended interaction debris. The Hubble position of the giant galaxy’s core is marked by the white ‘+,’ and optical identification of B3 1715+425 is enclosed by a white circle centered on its Hubble position. Image credit: J.J. Condon et al / NASA / ESA / Hubble / NSF / VLBA.

Astronomers Find ‘Nearly Naked’ Supermassive Black Hole Two Billion Light-Years Away

Nov 3, 2016 by News Staff

A team of scientists led by National Radio Astronomy Observatory astronomer James Condon has found the shredded remains of a small galaxy that passed through...

This image shows a bright gaseous halo around the quasar Q0042-2627. Image credit: Elena Borisova et al.

Astronomers Find Giant Gaseous Halos around Distant Quasars

Oct 26, 2016 by News Staff

A group of astronomers led by ETH Zurich scientist Elena Borisova has spotted giant clouds of glowing intergalactic gas around distant quasars. This image...

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